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WB: the Web Billboard |
Luca Fini (lfini@arcetri.astro.it). September 2005
Introduction
WB,
the Web Billboard is a CGI program which can be used to manage "billboards",
i.e.: pages where documents can be posted (and edited, and removed) in a simple
way, without the need to know HTML or how to manage a web site. In this respect
it may be considered a very simple form of Content Management System
which, in turn, is very simple to install and configure.
Exactly the same could be done simply by editing HTML files, but WB gives you a few
tools to simplify and speed up the process, namely:
- Documents are added to the billboard via an easy-to-use form. There is no need to know HTML
or any other formatting language to add a document or to modify it. Anybody who can do cut&paste
can add or modify a document.
- The editing form provides a very simple function to add attachments to any document. Again, you
don't need to know how to delete files from the web server, or even where they are actually
stored.
- When documents are posted to or removed from a billboard, the list of documents is automatically
updated.
- Each document has an associated posting date. You can post a document in advance, and it will
automatically be displayed when the date comes.
- You may also give an expiration date to the document, and it will disappear when the date comes.
- You may also get documents to be automatically removed when expired (and related attachments will be removed too).
- A mail message can be automatically sent to a list of addresses whenever a document is added, or
modified.
- Using WB all posted documents will have a consistent layout and aspect.
WB is highly configurable:
- Configurable document lists
- Configurable document aspect
- Multi-language support
What you need to use WB
WB is a CGI program written in Python. So that you essentially need a
Web server which can run Python programs. WB has been developed and tested with an
Apache 2 based web server running
Python 2.3, both on a system
running Solaris 5.8 (SPARC) and on a Linux box (Fedora core 3 distribution).
As long as you can have Apache and Python running
on your own Web server, you shouldn't have any troubles in running
WB on any Unix-like O.S. or even under Windows (in this latter case, anyway, the user authentication
mechanism has not been tested and will likely not work properly).
WB relies on some pieces of information which are provided by the Apache server when running CGI programs.
I have not tested it under other Web servers. If anybody can sucessfully use WB with other brands of Web servers,
please let me know.